URLBURT,
EDWIN TAFT MONROE, M. D., of Lincoln, Neb., was born in Rushford,
Allegheny county, N. Y., June 10th, 1828. His father was an extensive
woollen and cloth manufacturer, and large dealer in hardware. His
educational advantages in youth were but meagre, being confined to
instruction in the district school. From boyhood he displayed marked
aptness for the attainment of knowledge. In 1842, he removed to Buffalo,
N. Y., and there, constantly thrown in the society of Germans, he soon
acquired both knowledge of and fondness for the language. As soon as his
limited means would permit, he studied it under a teacher, and followed
up its acquisition by that of Latin, French, the natural sciences and
music.

In 1849, he located at
Detroit, Mich., and while there studied music under Professor Charles
Hess, in the Detroit Musical Academy. In the autumn of 1854, he removed
to Chicago, Ills., where his uncle and cousin -both practitioners of
medicine- resided, and under their instruction he first commenced the
study of medicine, but with no view to practice.

In 1858, he settled in
the South. In April, 1861, circumstances obliged him to return North,
and forced him to leave three years' earnings behind him. Having settled
in Warsaw, N. Y., he became acquainted with C. A. Drake, M. D., a homopathic
physician, with whom he resumed his study and reading of medicine, which
was interrupted, in 662, by his enlisting in the 24th New York Battery,
then stationed at Newberne, N. C. He remained in the service during
three years as Acting Hospital Steward, Acting Assistant Surgeon, and
Acting Surgeon in charge of hospital. May, 1865, being mustered out of
service, he returned to Buffalo, and graduated as a medical student in
February, 1867.

Although up to this
period a practitioner of allopathy, his convictions respecting the
truths of the Hahnemann school were so forcible that he adopted the new
system, in which experience has only confirmed his faith. Now
established at Lincoln, he enjoys a large and extended professional
influence and patronage.